Friday, December 25, 2009

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Last night, I found two great rubber stamp kits from my childhood;
"Fun with Hieroglyphics" and "Fun with Architecture."
I decided to break them out and play around with background designs pertaining to Project: Hendecalon. Above, you can see the pagoda inhabited by Captain X at the start of the graphic novel. It is a sort of monastery, where initiates learn KUNG-FU and Spirituality simultaneously.
The foreground of the drawing is a cemetery. All of the elements in the pagoda and its surrounding fence were stamped out with the architecture kit, and the hieroglyphic kit was used to decorate the gravestones.
While I hope to elaborate and improve upon the backgrounds stamped out with the kits, this exercise was a great reminder that "art" and "play" are not so far apart. Art is Play, and it is important never to lose sight of the enjoyment that art-making brings.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Here are some "snapshots" of the architecture on Planet Hendecalon. I'm still trying to work out the purpose behind the various buildings and monuments, and the history of their construction. After all, the Hendecalons have no arms!!!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I would like to send out a big "THANK YOU" to Shannon Smith, maker of mini-comics and reviewer of MANY comics. He has posted mostly positive reviews of my zines and minis on his blog, "File Under Other." He even was generous enough to give me a category in his archive next to many of my comics friends and heroes. Shannon has a good eye for comics, and I found his reviews to be unbiased and fair. It is a really great feeling when someone cares enough about your work to give you a critique. I met Shannon Smith at FLUKE, a mini-comics gathering in Athens, GA. He was selling and trading coffee bags filled with his minis. Here's the cover of his best work, "The Small Bible," published in 2008.The cryptic cover instantly pulls you in, and the interior, although text-heavy, has a great depiction of Samson offing Philistines with a donkey's jawbone! (See JUDGES 15: 14-16) I cannot thank Shannon enough for being the FIRST PERSON EVER to review my minis! So, thanks Shannon--I hope to see you again in Athens!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

I've been delving into some research for backgrounds lately. The background is just as important as the characters themselves, and I have neglected developing strong landscapes for the characters of Project: Hendecalon to inhabit. Hopefully, I can discipline myself to eke out a few good landscapes that will ultimately help me when I start to actually draw my pages.

Here are some background designs for the pagoda that Captain X calls home in Project: Hendecalon. He is the runt of the Dojo, left always to do menial tasks and adhere to a strict disciplinary code. One day, he finds a ladder to the sky and quietly slips away.

Below, you can see some of the inhabitants of Planet Hendecalon, along with the buildings that pepper the landscape. The central figure was conceived as a sort of leader for the Hendecalons, but I think he is too humanoid to really fit that role.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Lately, I've been working on a nonsensical language for the Hendecalons to communicate with. I am trying to take the English alphabet and abstract it to a point where the characters will no longer be recognizable. I particularly like the example above (discovered by scanning my sketchpad sideways) because it has a character resembling the Hendecalon eye at the top.

Above are some samples of my fumbling around, trying to make the letters more fluid. The word I chose to "translate" was the word ABSTRACT, a key adjective in describing the Hendecalons and their culture.

I got some positive feed back on my unnamed "flying eye" character, so the above is an effort on my part to push it further. I added a character from the Hendecalon alphabet to the sides of the body, possibly making the creature more cryptic. It kind of reminds me of the box from HELLRAISER. It might also make a great tattoo.